Potential noise impacts associated with concert sound from a proposed football stadium.

Abstract

A proposed new stadium for a national league football team was the subject of a recent Environmental Impact Report prepared for a major redevelopment of a former industrial site in San Francisco, CA. The development will include commercial and residential components, which would be adjacent to existing residential and industrial land. Consequently, potential noise impacts were evaluated for existing and future residential receptors. San Francisco recently revised its noise ordinance adopting relatively low limits for community noise, thus posing interesting challenges for new noise sources. The concept for the new outdoor stadium included a fixed sound system for football games that could result in noise impacts as well as those from crowd noise. This paper, however, will focus on the potential for community noise impacts from outdoor concerts that could be held in the stadium using the performer’s sound system as is typical in this situation. A three‐dimensional acoustical model, which included the local topography, stadium geometry, and representative loudspeaker characteristics, was developed to project sound levels in the residential community. The implications of exceeding the noise ordinance limits during a concert and possible mitigation measures are discussed as are the main details and results of the model.